One bemused follower on Twitter inquired: “What/who did you throw?” to which Mark valiantly replied it was “a stuffed mock eel”. Quite.

Four days of revelry actually got under way on Friday with the launch of the eel food safari which runs across the weekend, including Monday.

A variety of Ely’s restaurants, cafés and food venues have embraced the eel theme and are offering special festival dishes/menus using eel or providing creative twists on the eel theme.

Which explains why cafes and restaurants are serving up such delicacies as handmade eel decorated biscuits, handmade fudge with colourful wiggly eels, smoked eel scotch egg, and even a large eel shaped sausage was in at least one butcher’s window.